Q: Have you noticed any relationship between food sensitivity and raised blood sugar? And is there a reduction in blood sugars once the food sensitivities have been investigated and managed? Does blood sugar improve for those who manage their fructose and lactose and intolerance well?
A: These are interesting questions. I will try and help your thinking by letting you know where blood glucose levels (BGLs) fitted into care in food sensitive people. Because I first worked with hyperactive children I wondered if there was an increased likelihood of seeing diabetics, but very few patients were diabetic.
However many food sensitive parents reported that they could not let their children go without food or their attention, activity and mood symptoms would get worse, and adults reported that they could not go without all the usual meals and morning and afternoon tea. But they do not report hypoglycaemic symptoms.
Those who had a positive response to diet further reported that once on the diet they could last longer without food. I was very interested to read in Goodman and Gilman’s text on pharmacology that salicylate interferes with glucose tolerance. So I presume this is the reason for the improvement in food chemical sensitivity. This aspect would not apply to allergies.
I have now seen thousands of food sensitive families many with other symptoms besides ADHD. They tend to be lean or normal weight, occasionally a bit overweight.
Sometimes those who are also a bit concerned about weight report that one of the benefits of being on the diet is that they no longer have cravings. They report they can leave chocolate in the fridge and not eat it!
I have wondered about food sensitive people being generally normal weight. I think this is because diet responders tend to be supertasters and so are fussy. But I have also wondered if managing an elimination diet at the same time as managing diabetes or overweight may mean I do not see any people from these groups.
Since my patients are rarely diabetics I have not had any who are measuring their BGLs. Perhaps dietitians working in this area may let us know about food sensitive patients and BGLs. I suspect fructose or lactose intolerance management would be no different, except that care of anyone by an Accredited Practicing Dietitian may mean they better manage glucose intake after instruction about good nutritional food intake.
Joan
I am experiencing spiking blood sugars with my T1 child when eating foods she is intolerant to and would love more advice about this. We get mood changes too
Thanks
Karen
Hi Karen, you daughter is very unlucky to have T1 diabetes and food intolerances at the same time! You may get some help re the IGG blood tests with an immunologist as IGG relates more to allergies. The distressing symptoms your daughter has are certainly much more typical of food chemical intolerances than allergies. Mood changes are too. Dizziness can be part of diabetes so do ask your physician about that. [I now use the word food sensitivities more than intolerances as that means we do not know the mechanism that causes the reactions, as we do for conditions such as lactose intolerance, or coeliac disease.]
From the food sensitivity point of view you could look at what she was eating before the sore tummies, or other symptoms happened, including any medicines, as paediatric medicines and children’s chewable meds can contain lots of additives, especially artificial flavour. Unfortunately there has been no research done on TI and food reactions. I suspect if you looked in the diabetic research you would probably be told it is very rare. But each food sensitive person has their own metabolic pattern so you can do your own single case study. You can learn what you can for your daughter. You already know how to manage her diabetes. And I know there are people who are called “brittle diabetics” so maybe you will find out why for your daughter’s own version of diabetes. The next step is to be as familiar with her food sensitivies by doing diet investigation using all of the research available on this site: reading all the info in the Articles section, and going back over the article on BSL and food chemicals. You can gain form the research of food sensitivity using my books ‘Are You Food Sensitive?’ and ‘Tolerating troublesome Foods’ available from this site and via
https://www.amazon.com/Are-You-Food-Sensitive-investigate-ebook/dp/B00J7PC5VQ
https://www.amazon.com.au/Tolerating-Troublesome-Foods-Investigating-intolerance-ebook/dp/B00I7DS87O I wish you energy and fortitude to match the motivation you already have!